Regional Highlights

• The West and Central Africa region is not experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 as seen on other continents. The WCA region has recorded a steady decrease of cases over the last two weeks.
• The total number of COVID-19 cases has reached over 247,429 in the 23 countries in West and Central Africa. By the end of October 2020, there were 3,770 deaths, with a mortality rate of about 1.5%. Nearly 15,000 (9.6%) patients were still under treatment, while 92.5% had recovered.
• The pandemic continues to spread at a much slower rate. The five countries with the highest confirmed caseloads are: Nigeria (63,036), Ghana (48,124), Cameroon (22,103), Côte d'Ivoire (20,753) and Senegal (15,630).
• Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Equatorial Guinea record the highest percentage of recovery: 98.3% 98% and 97.6% respectively, while Chad and Liberia have the highest case fatality rates, 6.5% and  5.8%.
• Health worker infections continue to increase gradually with 8,437 infections reported in 22 WCA countries since the beginning of the outbreak. Nigeria remains the most affected, with 2,175 health workers infected, followed by Ghana (2,065), Cameroon (808), Guinea (513), Equatorial Guinea (363), Senegal (349) and  Guinea-Bissau (282). 
• In collaboration with Care International and Plan International, UNFPA and the GBV AoR, organized a high-level side event “Gender-Based Violence, Girls’ and Women’s Rights in the Central Sahel”, on 16 October 2020 in advance of the High-level Ministerial Roundtable. The highly-attended side event drew attention to protection crisis, and the need to prevent and respond to GBV in Central Sahel.